Leftovers

• The Strategist ☛ Hardly an inducement: tourism from China gets up Palau’s nose

  China might want to think again about its use of tourism as a means of influencing Palau.

• Hackaday ☛ A Look Inside A Canadian Satellite TV Facility

  If you’ve ever wondered what goes on in the ground facilities of a satellite TV operation, you could go banging on the doors or your local station. You’d probably get thrown out in short order. Alternatively, you could watch this neat little tour from [saveitforparts].

• Education

  • Stanford University ☛ Graduate workers union launches strike authorization ballot, urges members to reject University contract

    The union will begin a strike on Nov. 12 if the strike authorization vote passes and the University does not "adequately improve their offer," according to a SGWU press release.

• Hardware

  • New York Times ☛ Intel Posts $16.6 Billion Quarterly Loss, Its Biggest Ever

    The Silicon Valley chip maker has struggled to turn around its fortunes after missing opportunities and poor execution.

  • CS Monitor ☛ Intel is coming. Ohio community colleges say the state’s workers will be ready.

    Intel is building two plants at a cost of $20 billion and estimates they will bring 3,000 new jobs to Ohio. To prepare for its arrival, the the company wants to be sure that it has workers ready to go when the new campus opens.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ It’s been 30 years since Intel’s infamous Pentium FDIV bug reared its ugly head – a math bug caused Intel’s first CPU recall

    2024 marks the 30th anniversary since defective chip maker Intel announced a math glitch on some of its Pentium CPUs.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Elon Musk spent roughly $10 billion on Hey Hi (AI) training hardware in 2024

    xAI and Tesla spend billions on Hey Hi (AI) training hardware.

  • Tom's Hardware ☛ Meta is using more than 100,000 Nvidia H100 Hey Hi (AI) GPUs to train Llama-4 — Mark Zuckerberg says that Llama 4 is being trained on a cluster “bigger than anything that I’ve seen”

    Mark Zuckerberg says that Meta is training its Llama-4 models on a cluster with over 100,000 Nvidia H100 Hey Hi (AI) GPUs.

  • Hackaday ☛ Voyager 1 Fault Forces Switch To S-Band

    We hate to admit it, but whenever we see an article about either Voyager spacecraft, our thoughts immediately turn to worst-case scenarios. One of these days, we’ll be forced to write obituaries for the plucky interstellar travelers, but today is not that day, even with news of yet another issue aboard Voyager 1 that threatens its ability to communicate with Earth.

  • Hackaday ☛ 3D Printing With A Hot Glue Gun

    Face it, we’ve all at some time or other looked at our hot glue guns, and thought “I wonder if I could use that for 3D printing!”. [Proper Printing] didn’t just think it, he’s made a working hot glue 3D printer. As you’d expect, it’s the extruder which forms the hack here.

  • Hackaday ☛ Small Volumetric Lamp Spins At 6000 RPM

    Volumetric displays are simply cool. Throw some LEDs together, take advantage of persistence of vision, and you’ve really got something. [Nick Electronics] shows us how its done with his neat little volumetric lamp build.

• Health/Nutrition/Agriculture

  • Science Alert ☛ Just 3 Neurons Could Be Driving You to Eat, Study in Mice Suggests

    “It’s surprising that these neurons are so keyed to motor control."

  • New York Times ☛ Cuomo Told a House Panel His Memory Was Hazy. Is That a Perjury Defense?

    House Republicans referred the former New York governor for prosecution. His insistence on a faulty memory makes that outcome unlikely.

• Security

  • Integrity/Availability/Authenticity

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Phish ’n’ Ships: Human Security warns of fake shops exploiting payment platforms and SEO

      A new report out today from cybersecurity company Human Security Inc. is warning of a large-scale phishing scheme, dubbed “Phish ‘n’ Ships,” that leverages fake online shops and search engine manipulation to defraud consumers.

  • Privacy/Surveillance

    • Tom's Hardware ☛ Microsoft again delays Recall feature, says it will arrive for backdoored Windows Insiders on Copilot Plus PCs in December

      Microsoft says Recall will be available for backdoored Windows Insiders in December.

    • Silicon Angle ☛ Meta’s stock heads south on slow user growth and ongoing infrastructure investments

      Shares of Facebook (Farcebook) parent company Meta Platforms Inc. were heading lower in late trading today after the company reported lower-than-expected user numbers and revealed plans to ratchet up its data infrastructure spending in fiscal 2025.

    • Scoop News Group ☛ Exclusive: Senator calls on Commerce to tighten proposed rules on exporting surveillance, hacking tech to problematic nations

      Ron Wyden, D-Ore., fears the regulations have a major loophole and don't cover enough repressive governments’ agencies.

    • The Straits Times ☛ Uniqlo manager in Tokyo store arrested for secretly filming women at fitting rooms

      His smartphone contained 44 videos that appeared to have been secretly filmed in fitting rooms.

• Defence/Aggression

  • New York Times ☛ Iranian Officials Threaten Retaliation for Israeli Strikes

    It was unclear how or when Iran plans to respond, or whether the rhetoric could be bluster. Iranian officials had downplayed the damage of Israel’s last attack.

  • NYPost ☛ Iran’s Ayatollah orders retaliatory attack against Israel after IDF strike deemed too big to ignore: report

    Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has instructed his forces to prepare a direct attack against Israel after deeming the Jewish nation's retaliatory strike last week too big to ignore.

  • New York Times ☛ Strike on Gaza Hospital Destroys UN Supplies, Palestinian Officials Say

    Israeli troops had withdrawn from Kamal Adwan Hospital after arresting most of the medical staff. The Israeli military said it was “unaware of a strike” there.

  • Atlantic Council ☛ Congressman Mike Turner on how the ‘emerging axis of evil’ will challenge the next US administration

    The chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence discussed the threats to US security that the next president will face.

  • The Strategist ☛ Trick or treat? China comes a-knocking at Indonesia’s front door

    China is testing Prabowo Subianto’s new administration, with three successive incursions by China Coast Guard vessels into Indonesia’s exclusive maritime jurisdiction—the first occurring on the new president’s inaugural day in office.

  • Hong Kong Free Press ☛ China factory activity expands for first time in 6 months, outperforming analysts forecasts

    China’s manufacturing output expanded this month for the first time since April, official data showed Thursday, rare good news for leaders struggling to boost activity in the world’s second-largest economy.

  • LRT ☛ Lithuania’s presumptive PM vows to restore ties with China

    Gintautas Paluckas, the Social Democratic Party’s candidate for prime minister, says his government would seek to restore full diplomatic relations with China, repairing the rift caused by Taiwan opening a representation in Vilnius.

  • Hong Kong ‘running local political influence campaign’ on US soil

    The city is building ties with politicians, media organizations, think tanks and businesses around the country.

  • Vietnam expands strategic capabilities in South China Sea

    Vietnam is building runways, military structures on reclaimed islands at a ‘surprising’ pace, a think tank said

  • British foreign secretary under fire for failing to raise Uyghur genocide in China

    Opposition MPs and a Uyghur advocacy group blast David Lammy for a missed opportunity to broach the issue.

  • The Straits Times ☛ China holds first dual aircraft carrier drills in South China Sea

    Chinese state media said the exercises also took place in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Over 20 hospitalised after fire in south-west China’s Chengdu

    Those taken to hospital “are not in any critical condition”.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Indonesia to respond appropriately to South China Sea incidents, official says

    This comes after a Chinese coast guard vessel interrupted a survey by Jakarta’s state energy firm.

  • The Straits Times ☛ Pacific island Palau says China is pressing for Taiwan switch

    Palau also accused China of violating its exclusive economic zone.

  • The Straits Times ☛ North Korea’s leader Kim says longest ICBM test ‘appropriate military action’ against enemies

    The launch drew swift condemnation from South Korea, Japan and the US.

  Australia must brace for longer fire seasons and marine heatwaves ahead, report says

• The Straits Times ☛ Celebrity revelations raise issue of marital sexual abuse in South Korea

  Forcing or threatening spouse into nonconsensual sex constitutes rape, legal experts say.

• The Straits Times ☛ Dozens of North Korean defectors caught by secret police ‘vanish’, says rights group

  The group identified 113 people in 66 disappearance cases.

• The Straits Times ☛ Why one man’s move is shaking South Korea: Child rapist’s relocation sparks controversy, fear

  Cho Doo-soon was released from prison in December 2020 after serving 12 years for raping an 8-year-old girl.

• The Straits Times ☛ South Korean officials block bid to send balloons carrying leaflets into North Korea

  Residents of a village near Paju also gathered to express their opposition to the planned launch.

• The Straits Times ☛ North Korea says it test-fired latest ICBM Hwasong-19 on Oct 31

  The missile flew 1,001.2km for 5,156 seconds before landing in the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula.

• Days before US election, North Korea stages record long missile test

  The suspected ICBM was fired at a high angle, South Korea’s military said.

• JURIST ☛ North Korea escapees disappear after capture by secret police

  A South Korean advocacy group released a report on Thursday noting that more than 100 North Koreans have gone missing after trying to defect. The Transitional Justice Working Group (TJWG) published their findings as a part of their mapping project for North Korea.

• The Straits Times ☛ Real friends are hard to find, says ex-Malaysian PM Najib after court decision on 1MDB graft case

  The former Umno president expressed gratitude to everyone who supported him.

• The Straits Times ☛ Former minister Khairy says Malaysia’s ex-PM Najib ignored his advice to act against Jho Low

  Najib had insisted that Low was a legitimate and successful businessman.

• The Straits Times ☛ Malaysia police recover more than $2 million in ransom in Johor businessman kidnapping case

  One of the 14 suspects is a family member of the businessman.

• ACLU ☛ Anti-Immigrant Extremists Want to Use this 226-Year-Old Law to Implement a Mass Deportation Program

  Anti-immigrant extremists have repeatedly used “invasion” rhetoric to divide our communities and advance their anti-immigrant agenda. Donald Trump has promised to “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history” and, at recent campaign rallies, gone so far as to pledge that, if re-elected, he will invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to facilitate a draconian mass deportation program. Though Trump made similar promises when in office, we know that his administration would be far more aggressive in its efforts to use this colonial-era law to deport millions. Below, we breakdown what this means for our communities.

• JURIST ☛ Mozambique post-election protests leave 11 dead and dozens injured

  At least 11 people were killed and dozens more injured after security forces used live bullets and tear gas during post-election protests on Friday in Mozambique, according to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday.

• France24 ☛ After banning UNRWA, Israel has yet to propose alternative aid structure for Palestinians

  Despite opposition from the United States and a warning from the UN Security Council, the Israeli parliament voted on Monday to ban the UN's Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) from operating on Israeli territory. This vote has far-reaching humanitarian and political consequences, forcing the international community to rethink all aid to the Palestinians.

• Defence Web ☛ SANDF allocated more money but still badly underfunded

  The South African National Defence Force (SANDF) has been allocated an additional R3.6 billion in the latest ‘mini budget’ tabled on Wednesday, but is still underfunded and battling to meet its mandate.

• Russia, Belarus, and War in Ukraine

  • Meduza ☛ Fears grow that Chechen officials will fabricate new charges against jailed oppositionists’ mother — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ Prosecutors seek 17-year sentence against former Uralvagonzavod engineer in case with apparent ties to Evan Gershkovich’s reporting — Meduza

  • Meduza ☛ Detainee jailed for organized criminal activity in Tatarstan sets himself on fire after prison abuse complaints go unanswered — Meduza

Transparency/Investigative Reporting

• Federal News Network ☛ Why contractor pricing misconduct seems to endure perpetually

  "These False Claims Act cases often don't come to prosecution without an individual whistleblower stepping forward," said Greg Williams.

Environment

• Energy/Transportation

  • New York Times ☛ Why a Memphis Community Is Fighting Elon Musk’s Supercomputer

    Residents say Mr. Musk’s data center for artificial intelligence is compounding their pollution burden and adding stress on the local electrical grid.

  • Ford shuts electric truck plant as sales slow

    Ford Motor Company announced Thursday the closure of its Dearborn Michigan plant for the final six weeks of 2024 due to sluggish demand for the F-150 Lightning electric truck.

    The market for EV pickups has proven softer than producers had hoped, with anecdotal reports that lack of charging station access continues to weigh on consumer decision making. Earlier in 2024, Ford reduced production numbers for the Lightning EV by half. Plans to introduce an EV SUV for the US market were also scrapped.

Finance

• New York Times ☛ Apple’s Quarterly Profit Down Because of Tax Payment in Europe

  Sales for the iPhone maker were up 6 percent to to $94.93 billion. But a $14.4 billion tax bill cut profits that would have topped expectations.

• Ignacy Kuchciński: The Bargain-Finder-inator 5000: One programmer's quest for a new flat

   The Bargain-Finder-inator 5000: One programmer's quest for a new flat

  Or how I managed to get a reasonably priced apartment offer despite estate agencies

  I think every one of us had to go through the hell that's searching for a new place to live. The reasons may be of all kinds, starting with moving between jobs or random life events, ending with your landlord wanting to raise your rent for fixing his couch despite your 3 years of begging for him to do so. You can guess my reasoning from that totally not suspiciously specific example, one thing's for certain - many of us, not lucky enough to be on their own yet, have to go through that not very delightful experience.
  
  One major problem when scraping those online market websites, is that you're not the only one desperately doing so. And if it was only for the fellow lost souls who are trying to make ends meet, oh no - many real estate agencies say hello there as well. So when a very good offer finally comes up, one that you've been dreaming your whole life kind of one, you grab that phone and call them not maybe, but may they please-oh-lord pick up. Despite you wasting no breath, chances are that when you enthusiastically call them (after correcting the typos in the phone number you made out of excitement), you're already too late. Even though you ended up manually checking the damn website every 20 minutes (yup, I set an alarm), and you called after only a quarter, you were still not fast enough and there are already four people in line before you. Which in case of a good offer means it's as good as doughnuts at work you heard they were giving out to buy your sympathy for the corporate - gone even faster than they have probably arrived. Yup, that's basically the housing market situation in Poland, yay \o/

• The Chain Of Command: How Facebook’s Libra, Bank Regulators, and PayPal Built A New World Currency

  Two companies closely tied to Peter Thiel – PayPal and Facebook (Farcebook) – have embarked on apparently unsuccessful efforts to create a “new world currency.” Yet, upon further examination, those efforts have actually been wildly successful and many recent events of significant in finance – including but not limited to the 2023 banking crisis – have arguably been orchestrated to facilitate the vision of Thiel and his early allies and the creation of a new paradigm for currency, one where privately issued money meets surveillance.

• Exclusive: Jack Dorsey’s Block plans more layoffs just days after cuts at Tidal

  His company, which operates payments service Square, money transfer app CashApp, and music streaming platform Tidal, plans its second round of successive layoffs in December, two employees familiar with the plans told Fortune. The date of the cuts is currently set for next week, as well as the week of December 3, one of the people said, although that date could change should plans shift. The people asked to be kept anonymous as they aren't authorized to speak about company matters.

• IT Pro ☛ Dropbox layoffs continue as firm cuts another 20% of staff

  Dropbox will cut staff for the second year in a row, CEO Drew Houston has announced, with an additional 528 layoffs - 20% of the workforce - expected in the coming months.

  Taking full responsibility for the decision, Houston explained that the layoffs come during a transitional period in which Dropbox is looking to focus on products such as ‘Dash for Business,’ an AI tool.

  “Our FSS business has matured, and we've been working to build our next phase of growth with products like Dash. However, navigating this transition while maintaining our current structure and investment levels is no longer sustainable,” Houston said.

• Fast Company ☛ Tech layoffs continue in October 2024 as Dropbox, Tidal, Meta, and other high-profile companies cut jobs ahead of the holidays

  A number of big-name tech companies continued to make job cuts in the month that just ended. October saw job losses in the thousands at some of the industry’s biggest players, according to job site layoff tracker Layoffs.fyi.

AstroTurf/Lobbying/Politics

• France24 ☛ Democracy under duress? Tense countdown to Election Day in the United States

  The planet's predominant superpower prides itself on its rules-based order and a constitution that codifies and sets in stone the transfer of power through the ballot box, a model and values the United States tries to impose on the world scene. But for all the laws, all the rules, there is Mao's line about political legitimacy, that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

• JURIST ☛ Japan court reaffirms same-sex marriage ban is unconstitutional

  The Tokyo High Court declared Japan’s current policy against same-sex marriage as discriminatory and unconstitutional in a ruling on Wednesday. The case involved a couple in Tokyo registered as same-sex partners who sought compensation from the government, arguing that laws failing to recognize same-sex marriage violated the Japanese constitution.

• JURIST ☛ US Supreme Court allows Virginia to keep removing voters from election rolls amid pending lawsuit

  The US Supreme Court issued an order on Wednesday permitting the state of Virginia to continue to remove voters from its election rolls with just five days until the federal election.

• Marcy Wheeler ☛ A Tale of Two Pennsylvania Lawsuits

  Donald Trump is squawking about a fairly minor problem in Bucks County, PA, but not a more significant one in Erie.

Censorship/Free Speech

• Myanmar junta charges Burmese-Indian man who criticized film that ridiculed Hinduism

  Shine Htet Aung had been missing for days after his Facebook (Farcebook) review of the movie went viral.

• New York Times ☛ In China, Comedy Is Giving Women a Voice. But Can Men Take a Joke?

  Comedy has become a way for women to skewer China’s gender inequality. Some men aren’t happy about it.

Freedom of Information / Freedom of the Press

• Press Gazette ☛ The Observer has a half-life of six years: Tortoise deal is best option for brand and staff

  Media analyst and former executive Jim Chisholm says Guardian journalists are wrong to strike over Observer sale.

• Press Gazette ☛ Ofcom fines GB News £100,000 after ‘serious and repeated’ impartiality breaches

  Ofcom said Rishi Sunak was given a "mostly uncontested platform" on GB News.

• Press Gazette ☛ Guardian CEO warns staff Observer faces ‘difficult decisions’ if Tortoise deal fails

  Anna Bateson says Observer is loss-making but has chance to be sustainable with Tortoise.

• Michael Geist ☛ CRTC Approves Google’s $100 Million Online News Act Exemption Deal

  The government’s deeply flawed attempt to force tech platforms to pay Canadian news outlets for linking to news is nearing its payout. The CRTC this week formally exempted Surveillance Giant Google from negotiating individual agreements and facing a potential mandated arbitration system in return for a lump sum $100 million annual payment. The $100 million deal was the government’s last ditch attempt to salvage the Online News Act as its insistence that tech platforms would never walk away from news proved to be disastrously wrong. Within weeks of the former Bill C-18 receiving royal assent in June 2023, Meta blocked news links on its Facebook (Farcebook) and Instagram platforms.

Civil Rights/Policing

• France24 ☛ French PhD student held in Tunisia since October 19, supervisor says

  French PhD student Victor Dupont has been detained in Tunisia on breach of state security charges for at least 12 days. His academic surpervisor said he had been conducting interviews about the career paths of people who protested in 2011's uprising and was sociological in nature, not political.

• France24 ☛ The fight for women's rights in Afghanistan is a universal one, former minister says

  Afghan women are forbidden from praying loudly or reciting the Quran in front of other women, according to a Taliban government minister. It’s the latest restriction on women following morality laws that ban them from raising their voice and baring their faces outside the home. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks to former Afghan Minister Nargis Nehan. She says that women's rights in Afghanistan are a universal issue, not an internal problem of the country.

• Digital Music News ☛ Federal Judge Rules ‘Jane Doe’ Must Be Named in Diddy Assault Lawsuit — Here’s the Decision

  A federal judge rules the Jane Doe who accused Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs of sexual assault can’t proceed under a pseudonym. Federal Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil ruled that an anonymous woman who filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs must file under her real name by November 13, or the lawsuit will be dismissed.

Internet Policy/Net Neutrality

• Science Alert ☛ The Creepy True Story of The Nightmare Face Haunting The Internet

  "This is a true horror story."

• Internet Society ☛ A World Without the Internet is a Disaster (Movie)

  As the Internet becomes increasingly prominent in our lives, it has also begun to play a larger role in the movies we watch.

  More and more, in disaster movies, there is a key indicator that something is really wrong and bad things are about to happen: The Internet is down.